Century-old cheese plant finds a home

A century-old wooden farmstead cheese plant that sat dormant for nearly 100 years will once again be making cheese – and the public can see it in action.

Arnold Imobersteg, 92, a retired dairy farmer who lives on a 400-acre farm just across the Wisconsin border in Orangeville, Ill., is donating his farm’s cheese plant to the National Historic Cheesemaking Center in Monroe. The plant has sat unused on the farmstead since 1917 and contains all of the original cheesemaking equipment, including a copper kettle, press table, original intake wheel and wooden press bars.

A groundbreaking ceremony will be held at 4 p.m. June 24 at the center to celebrate the moving of the factory and all of its contents. It is open to the public.

“This is a one-of-a-kind find,” said Mary Ann Hanna, executive director at the cheesemaking center. “We are absolutely ecstatic that we’ll now be able to demonstrate how cheese was made in the late 1800s and early 1900s. We’ve never had the equipment or facility to do that before.”

The 20-by-20 foot wooden shed with brick chimney was probably already on the farm when Imobersteg’s parents, Anna and Alfred, bought the small dairy in 1902 after emigrating from Switzerland.

His parents made cheese and later hired a cheesemaker to make brick, Swiss and Limburger twice a day from the milk of the family’s 40 dairy cows, all milked by hand. The cheese was then shipped to Monroe by horse and wagon to be sold.

“They made a lot of cheese by hand with no electricity and no running water,” Imobersteg said. “I sure wish I’d had been here to see it.”

The year before he was born, the Imoberstegs and all of their neighbors were required to start shipping their milk to the nearby Borden Factory in Orangeville to be processed into condensed milk and shipped to soldiers serving in World War I. By the time the war ended, a larger, more modern cheese factory had been built just up the road.

Imobersteg said he’s glad the facility will be restored.

Once the factory is moved this summer, the original equipment will be restored by a blacksmith, brick layer and contractor. The facility should be ready for viewing by Cheese Days in Monroe on Sept. 17 to 19. For festival information, click here.